James Arlington Wright

A Winter Daybreak Above Vence - Poem by James Arlington Wright

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The night's driftsPile up below me and behind my back,Slide down the hill, rise again, and buildEerie little dunes on the roof of the house.In the valley below me,Miles between me and the town of St.-Jeannet,The road lamps glow.They are so cold, they might as well be dark.Trucks and carsCough and drone down there between the goldenCoffins of greenhouses, the startled squawkOf a rooster claws heavily acrossA grove, and drowns.The gumming snarl of some grouchy dog sounds,And a man bitterly shifts his broken gears.True night still hangs on,Mist cluttered with a racket of its own.

Now on the mountainside,A little way downhill among turning rucks,A square takes form in the side of a dim wall.I hear a bucket rattle or something, tinny,No other stirring behind the dim faceOf the goatherd's house. I imagineHis goats are still sleeping, dreamingOf the fresh rosesBeyond the walls of the greenhouse below them.And of lettuce leaves opening in Tunisia.

I turn, and somehowImpossibly hovering in the air over everything,The Mediterranean, nearer to the moonThan this mountain is, Shines. A voice clearlyTells me to snap out of it. GalwayMutters out of the house and up the stone stairsTo start the motor. The moon and the starsSuddenly flicker out, and the whole mountainAppears, pale as a shell.

Look, the sea has not fallen and brokenOur heads. How can I feel so warmHere in the dead center of January? I canScarcely believe it, and yet I have to, this isThe only life I have. I get up from the stone.My body mumbles something unseemlyAnd follows me. Now we are all sitting here strangelyOn top of sunlight.